


Do It For Him

by imagymnasia



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers, Spoilers - Genocide Route, lots of angst and defeatism ahead, sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 22:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4937443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagymnasia/pseuds/imagymnasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've done this a thousand thousand times. It always ends the same way, so why even try?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do It For Him

**Author's Note:**

> [Minor warning for angst, thoughts on futility, and general rage/self-loathing. Went teen just for tone.]
> 
> And, if you didn't get it before,
> 
> **THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD.**
> 
> You've been warned.

_Am I always on the edge of quitting?_  
_Giving up and just forgetting_  
 _Everything I ever stood for…_

* * *

He’d done this more times than he could count. Ten. A hundred. A thousand. Who kept track anymore? Certainly not him. It was useless, anyway. Things like numbers and iterations had long ago ceased to matter.

Yet he kept showing up.

Someone had to, after all, and somehow it fell to him. He supposed it was because he was the only one who _could._ Sometimes, he was the only one left.

So he kept up the charade. He played his part dutifully, over and over and over and  _over_. It wasn’t always bad; it hadn’t been, in the beginning. But every reset made it harder, every life he lived left him more and more empty. And still he came, even when it was hard; even as his heart broke into smaller and smaller pieces. Surely it was dust by now. The irony of that thought made him laugh.

Some part of him hoped that one day the cycle would break; every time he prayed, to whom he didn’t know, that this would be the last time. Every time, his prayers went unanswered. This time was no different.

That damned child walked calmly through the castle hall, expression blank, eyes dangerous and hollow. The sight of it approaching always turned his stomach. All Sans felt now was disgust, sorrow, and a dream betrayed. It was all he had felt in a long time.

“You know,” he said dully, skeletal hands still stuffed in his pockets, “I’d really hoped you’d get bored of all this. You got bored of good fast enough, didn’t you? ‘Course, getting bored of murder isn’t much better. Guess we all have to pass the time.”

Sans paused. Something in the back of his mind told him to try again, that maybe this time he’d get through to the tiny monster before him. There might be something human left in there, even after all this time. But he couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. What right did he have to play judge and jury, anyway? His hands weren’t clean in this, either.

“I don’t know which is worse,” he said finally, “the fact that you keep coming back here, or the fact that I let you.”

The human stared blankly, unblinking. The knife twitched in its hand, just enough to catch the golden light through the windows; the reflection flashed across the skeleton’s face, but it couldn’t touch the darkness in Sans’ eyes. It only bounced off his bony cheeks, shining with the trails of angry tears.

“My brother was the best thing that has ever happened to me. To all of us. He was a goofball and his cooking could poison a ghost, but he deserved better. Better from you, better from this world, and better from me. He was good, and pure, and– and all the things that I’m not.

“…Just means I’m free to do what he couldn’t, I guess,” he said finally, his tone turning to steely ice. His eye flashed blue, a color cold and sharp as death. He raised a trembling bony hand and grinned, even as the tears began anew. “So do me a favor this time, will you,  _and_

_JUST_

_**D I E**_.”

Maybe it was futile, he thought, but he wouldn’t give up. He couldn’t. If he was going to hell, he’d take that inhuman bastard child with him. 

He owed Papyrus that much.


End file.
